GemCraft Chapter 2: Chasing Shadows
Gemcraft Chapter 2 is a game made by Game in a Bottle and is the long awaited sequel to Gemcraft. It was released on April 4th, 2014. Development for the game started on August 1, 2011. On December 16, 2011, GameinaBottle posted the first screenshot of the game. In his blog post, many spoilers were released for the game. Changes from Previous Games Game Mechanics 9x fast button The game features a new 9x fast button for players who spend hours on Endurance. Also, the menu bar can now be switched from the top to the bottom for the user's preference. XP bar The game has the XP bar with now in different graphics.This XP bar in the battle was first introduced on Gemcraft iOS. Endurance Endurance mode can now only be attempted after the player beats the alotted numbed of waves for the level they are playing, and is a button on the victory screen. Skills You start off your journey with only a few skills, but you can gain more by unlocking tome chambers on certain maps by killing a specific number of monsters in specific ways. Also, unlike GC1, GC0 and GCL, the skill cap can be increased by every tenth level you reach. Ex: at level 1 you start with a skill cap of 5 which increases to 6 by level 10, to 7 at level 20, and so on. The Talisman An item with sockets that you can fill up with rare monster and chest drops. Each fragment has a rarity that is increased with trait difficulty and level that can be increased with shadow cores. Each has a one to a set of abilities to give your wizard bonuses in battle. World map The world map in GC2 is a bit different from the previous Gemcraft games. The level blocks now resemble a grade 1 gem, just like Gemcraft Chapter 0 (Gem of eternity) and Gemcraft Chapter 1 (The Forgotten). Some levels resemble higher grade gems such as grade 3. Unlike other Gemcraft games, levels are now on hextiles. Each hextile has 5 to 7 levels. Almost all hextiles have a special field where a wizard tower is located. When you beat a field with a wizard tower, more hextiles will unlock (For example, You completed F4, then you will unlock Hextiles I and H,that means you will also unlock I1.) At the start of the game, you will first unlock Hextile F, and unlock F1. Wizard tower fields have a hostile wizard tower which will smash your orb of presence if you do not break all locks located on the field when the final wave starts. Locks break when certain conditions are met, for example when you shoot it with a tower a certain amount of times, or use a freeze spell on it X times.Even kill a Certain amount of Monsters.When all locks are broken,you will be given at least 1 hextile, 1 map token, and a battle trait (Example: F4 unlocks Hextiles E and I, tokens E1 and I1, and the haste battle trait), but beware that if you are defeated on the next waves,the Wizard tower and locks reset. Battle traits cost shadow cores and add effects that make battles more difficult for a bonus to the exp multiplier and drop rarity range. World Map levels See: List of Fields in Gemcraft Chapter 2 Vision Fields These are fields that let you peek into past or future events. On these levels you will replay some fields from previous gemcraft games with a fixed set of skills. These levels are considered the most challenging levels in the game. All talisman effects and skills are deactivated for these levels. Level Map The maps are redone in GC2:CS, and are filled with more color. Paths can now be made from dirt, sand or whatever terrain you're currently in, as well as stones. GC2- Maps 1.jpg|Field F4 in Beta GC2 Maps 2.jpg|Field F6 in Beta GC2 Maps 3.jpg|Field F1 in Beta GC2 Maps 4.jpg GC2 Maps 5.jpg GC2 Maps 6.jpg Achievements See: Achievements (GC2). Buildings Shrines lose their buildable status and return to their "special" status from GC0. Walls shrink to down to 1×1 units while the other towers are 2×2 units. This helps you put your towers where you want with more precision. Amplifers h ave a deployment time when set to balance out the bonus power of being able to boost up shrines. You will obtain the ability to build amplifiers after you beat the J4 tomb. In levels whose tiles resemble grade 2(GC1 GC0)/Grade 3(GCL GCCS) gems, a new building known as the "wizard tower" is introduced which will destroy the orb if its locks are not destroyed before the final wave. You will be given things like a Hextile when you unlock it. In levels whose times resemble Grade 1 gems that is like a Tri-swirl design inside,a new building known as the 'Tome chamber' is introduced.Tome chambers open and give you some items when you Complete the task said in the Chamber(For example,Kill X reavers) Stone circles called nodes appear in some levels, these store energy from monsters that are under the influence of an effect like curse or freeze. Ruined nodes will build up a charge to 10% then damage enemies in range. Some vision maps require you to charge 5 nodes to 100% to beat them. Imprisoned Gem of Eternity Replicas and the Scythe Gate, old gems of eternity (The Forgotten has been captured 6 times before) can be found caged in some levels, these randomly banish monsters. The scythe gate appears on H1 and will also randomly banish enemies. Obelisks and Corrupted Mana Shards. Obelisks function like beacons randomly bestowing monsters with a random effect, obelisks are indestructable. Corrupt Mana Shards are yellow mana shards that, while inexhaustable, will weaken any gems that feed off of them. Gems The gems get a total rearrangement in GC2. The lime gem and the shocking power are both gone, and the black and white gems make their first appearance in this game. The new gems will have the following types: Poolbound is a new ability that increases all the components of white gems (minus black gems) whenever the mana bar reaches its maximum. The black gem's bloodbound power is similar, except it increases all the components minus the white gem. The other new ability is Supressing Healing. Monsters can now heal gradually while they go to the orb, and the cyan gem lowers the healing rate even to below 0. All the other gem powers are the same with a few slight changes. Gem types are not unlockable once a field has started. However, you can learn different skills from skill tomes which will permenantly unlock a specific gem type. Summoning/Enraging When you use a gem bomb to summon monsters, it increases the health, armor level, and XP gained from the monsters. There is also a chance that beacons will appear on the field if over five gem bombs are dropped on the wave. Summoning is renamed as Enraging in GC2. Gem Bombs There is a new method of rapid gem bombing. If you hold SHIFT and press the bombing button, gems from the inventory will automatically be selected for bombing, as in Labyrinth. If you click on the gem bomb button, then hold shift, the new method is used instead. When you click on the screen, a duplicate from the topmost gem in your inventory taken out of your mana is thrown. Component Abilites While a gem in the previous games could only have 3 specials at a time, GC2 will let you have as many specials as the number of components in the gem. As more components are added, each special will decrease in power. If they become too weak then they drop off the list of gem abilities, i.e. if poison goes below 1 hp per sec it is removed. Below is a chart of how much power (%) each component has based on how many components are in the gem. Mana When the mana pool reaches its maximum, it will automatically increase the mana pool size along with the power of any white gems. A new info panel is given to the mana bar, giving more specific info on how much mana you're receiving. The mana bar also replaces the gem anvil from Labyrinth. Now you drop a gem on the bar to destroy it and refund 70% of its mana cost. Shrines Shrines return to their special status from GC0, but they can be used over and over as in GCL. None of the previous shrines are returning, and they are replaced with nine new shrines, each based off one of the nine gems. Below is a table of all the shrines: Each shrine has a different charging speed and range. New shrines can be made onto the field by a very rare spark, called Shrine Scroll. Mana Shards Mana Shards can now have a shell on them that must be completely destroyed before you can harvest the mana. If the shard has a shell, it will be purple, instead of light blue. Mana shards can be created by a spark called Unearthed Shard. A new kind of shard, called a corrupted shard, is added. This shard has infinite mana, but will permanently reduce the damage of gems that harvest from it. Beacons Beacons now have varied ranges, health, and armor level, giving the game more variety. They also have different charge times between the blasts.A list of beacons for GC2 is below. Many beaons will display their range when you hover with the mouse. Enemies Enemies are divided into 3 basic classes: Reavers, Swarmlings and Giants. Runner monsters and armored monsters are removed from the game, instead, all enemy classes can now have up to 3 different bonuses (called Marks, or curses). These bonuses consist of increased speed, armor, health, etc. The bonuses become stronger the higher the round. Flying Ones There are also random appearences by so called "Flying Ones". These are flying creaters, which usually drop a lot of shadow cores. There are 3 different flying "monsters". Apparitions: These spirits of slain wizards fly right across the screen, they are harmless but drop a lot of shadow cores if you kill them. Specters: These dark, twisted and corrupt beings were once harmless spirits flying around, but were corrupted by the Forgotten. They fly faster than apparitions and go directly for your most valuable gem. If you don't kill a specter before it reaches your gem, it will be taken away. Shadows: Shadows are the strongest demons you will encounter, they have lots of health, spawn monsters and shoot projectiles towards your orb to steal your mana. A Shadow stays on screen untill you kill it. They have a recharging shield whenever your gems do not attack it and teleports randomly across the screen. If that was not enough, they also continue causing havok even when the game is paused! You have been warned! Spires: While not exactly "flying" these creatures walk in a straight line toward your orb, they cannot be banished so if they reach your orb the battle is over, they're slow at least. New Features Heads Up Display Game in a bottle added a feature where you can move the bar that displays mana and score to the bottom. This makes the wave tiles come from the top, instead of the bottom. However, I don't see this in the final game. Can anyone help??? Spells Spells are different abilitys which get unlocked by finding the matching skill. There are 3 strike spells and 3 gem enhancing spells. Gem enhancing spells will add an temporary bonus attack to gems in towers and a permanent bonus to gems in traps. Strike spells are used to give monsters special effects to weak them. Freeze Enemies within the range of this spell will be frozen for a period of time. While frozen their armor is divided by 1.5. When killed they explode and deal additional damage to surrounding monsters. Curse Enemies within the range of this spell will be cursed for a period of time. While cursed they are more vulnerable to damage and slowing effect. Wake of Eternity Enemies within the range of this spell are damaged for a percentage. Additional a high percentage of healing and armor is shred and all shields are removed. Every fifth target are banished. Bolt Towers - Gives towers an extra attack in the form of a set number of bolts, depending on how high the bolt skill is. The bolts base damage and range is an extra +50% range and +120% damage. Traps - Casting bolt on a trap allows the gem inside to ignore enemy armor. Beam Towers - Gives towers an extra attack in the form of a beam that constantly damages enemies within range for a set amount of time. The beam has a 10 tile range limit. Traps - Casting beam on a trap reduces the reload time (increases attack speed) of the trap by 30% Barrage Towers - Gives towers an extra attack in form of a set number of barrage shell shots that have +20% damage and +30% range. Each shot releases 3 shells Traps - Casting Barrage on a trap increases special powers by 30%. Sparks Sparks are events set in between the waves that trigger bonuses in the game. When activated, they provide one of three different categories. They can provide an instant bonus, create something, or bring a burst of thunders randomly onto the field. The effects can be increased to an extent by using gem bombs on them.Burst of thunders can appear of Stormy weather fields. Abilities Prism cascade Charges spells and shrines Stone supply Decreases all building mana costs Shrine Summons a random precharged shrine Touch of wisdom Increases the mana bar XP multiplier Lockdown Disables and weakens all active beacons. Unearthed shard Summons a mana shard having a shell. Gem Wasps Gem Wasps are insects that are inside of gems. When a gem is used as a gem bomb, the wasps come out and attack nearby monsters. They cannot be controlled in who they attack, but they make gem bombs have a use in the higher waves. Orblets Orblets come from a battle trait. They sit around your Orb and can be claimed by monsters who carry them off field. While docked to the orb, they increase the rate at which you gain mana by 5%. When a monster reaches your orb it picks up an Orblet and carries it to the edge of the field. If you kill that monster the orblet it was carrying returns slowly to the orb. It can be picked up again even before reaching the Orb. Until the orblet returns you receive no bonus or penalty. Upon leaving the field, a penalty of - 10% is applied to the rate at which you earn mana. Talisman powers allow you to increase the heaviness of the orblets, reducing the speed of monsters which are attempting to carry them off-field, and to increase the speed at which they return to the tower if a monster carrying them is killed. Story (Spoilers Are Present Below, You have been warned...) It focuses on the wizard from Gemcraft Chapter 1 with The Forgotten on their way to the Spiritforge. As they venture along, they passed through the trap of the wizard called the Scythe Gate. The wizard then was seperated from The Forgotten and landed on his old wizard tower. Now the player need to assist the wizard from Gemcraft Labyrinth (a.k.a the Gembearer) and set a trap to capture her before she reaches the Spiritforge. The story also explains the things that you encounter in your journey (tomes, wizard towers, apparitions, etc.) As you continue onwards towards the spiritforges your character ponders the summoning of the Forgotten, questioning if the summoning "was really an accident". You also ponder as to the forgottens plot and as to her motives. You eventually discover the summoning fields that gave birth to the abomination and also discover on your journey, the six caged replica's of the gem of eternity (each of which were used to trap the forgotten until she was freed). You continue onwards and find the gem bearer... Dead. However lying by his side is the gem of Eternity. You collect this gem (stating that it feels strange) and continue onwards to the gate of the spiritforges. You them use the Gem of eternity you collected from the deceased Gem bearer to lay waste to the hordes of monsters assaulting you outside the shield of the spirit forge. It is then that things go wrong and the truth is revealed. The Gem of Eternity after absorbing the essence of the monsters begins to glow with a blinding light and as it does so the camera flashes to the other sealed Gem or Eternity replica. The replica then transfer energy to the Gem of Eternity which then fires a powerful burst of magic at the spiritforge shield, destroying it. It is then revealed that all along the gem that you had collected from the Gem bearers corpse was a fake. It was a replica gem like the other sealed replici and had been used to hold the Forgotten and as such had been corrupted. In all the previous instances where the Forgotten has been sealed, she would slowly corrupt the gem, twisting the gem's power to her own needs and binding all the fake gems to one another. So when you used the socketed fake you would use the corrupted power of all the gems and would destroy the shield. The Forgotten even let you live to that end after you used the scythe gate. In the end you were the Forgotten's pawn she used to break into the one place that she could not enter or corrupt. However she probabily never meant for you to live and that may have been a mistake as the game alludes to a sequel in which you enter the Spiritforge after finding the real Gem of Eternity which has been poorly hidden by the Forgotten. Features *There is the return of previous epic level stages, called Vision fields marked by a black flame. Each one is a unique challenge. *There are now specters which steal gems, shadows which shoot at the orb, apparitions and spires which "tank" your gems. Gameinabottle Comment 1.jpg|One of Gameinabottle's comments Gameinabottle Comment 2.jpg|One of Gameinabottle's comments Steam Shortly before Gemcraft 2 was released, the game was put on Steam Greenlight and got Greenlit in a week. The Steam version of Gemcraft is going to be released in October 2014 and will cost $9.95. This could possibly mean that there will be content exclusively for the Steam version. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/updates/234463734 Category:Gemcraft Chapter 2 (Chasing Shadows) Category:Chapters Category:Games